Thief on the Cross: Templar Secrets in America (Templars in America Series Book 2)

by David S. Brody

  But, as Hayek had made clear in his briefing, that didn’t mean January didn’t have the potential to destabilize the entire Middle East.

  CHAPTER 11

  Amanda awoke in the middle of the night, her ears straining to hear the soft breathing of Astarte in the adjacent bedroom over the patter of rain against the roof. She had checked on the girl a couple of times, happy and a bit surprised to see the young princess sleeping comfortably with Ishtar, the stuffed pink bunny Salazar had given her.

  She and Cam had not been so resilient. He snored now quietly next to her, his nightmares finally having exhausted him. Long after midnight they had huddled together in bed, Cam recounting January’s death, she reliving the fear of the bullet whizzing past her ear. Her experience had been the more terrifying one, but it had come and gone quickly; the gory details of January’s death seemed burned into the back of Cam’s eyes, and the causal connection between his flip of the light switch and the gun being fired convinced Cam he had January’s blood on his hands. She had read once about how policemen reacted to suicide-by-cop incidents, and it seemed like Cam was experiencing the same range of emotions. Intellectually, he knew he was not to blame. But emotionally he found it hard to get past the reality that he directly caused a death.

  She had covered him like a blanket as they made love, her hands cradling his face and her body flat against his, shielding him from his memories and guilt while the rhythms of their breathing drowned the echo of the gunshot in her head. But when they curled up together afterward and he began to drift off to sleep, he startled awake, his hands raised to shield his face from a shower of blood and brain matter as his subconscious replayed the death scene. Finally she tucked his face into the crook of her arm and draped her nightgown over him, and he slept. She, on the other hand, had barely dozed, the memory of the bullet ricocheting off the car inches from her cheek buzzing in her head like an angry mosquito.

  Even cuddled together under the blankets she could not warm her core—the fear of captivity had been replaced by the fear of being shot at. She quietly got out of bed, threw on a sweatshirt and pulled the blind aside, a sharp pain knifing her side from the motion of lifting her arm. The street was empty. Were they safe here? She didn’t doubt Salazar’s aptitude, but was it really possible to hide from the feds? There was that Boston gangster, Whitey Bulger, who had been on the run for almost 20 years before they finally caught him. But he had spent years setting up aliases and bank accounts and safe houses preparing for a life in hiding. She and Cam were just winging it. Not to mention they had a little girl in tow.

  A night of reflection hadn’t changed her thinking. Their best move—perhaps their only move—was to go to the Catskills and find the missing artifacts. Not that they could climb a mountain in this weather. But by tomorrow, Thanksgiving, it was supposed to clear. She turned back toward Cam; she’d let him sleep a bit. In the meantime she’d take advantage of their Internet capability. She made herself a cup of coffee and opened the laptop on the kitchen table.

  Amanda focused first on the ‘Ereptor Crucis’ mystery, probably because it was a simple matter to type the terms ‘Jesus,’ ‘thief’ and ‘cross’ into a Google search. Most of the search results discussed the New Testament story of two thieves being crucified alongside Jesus. But once she narrowed her search she was astounded at what she learned. Apparently a Templar official, under questioning and torture after his arrest in 1307, admitted that the Templars referred to Jesus as “The Thief on the Cross.” She found the specific Templar teaching on the subject: “Jesus … said he was God and the King of the Jews, which was an outrage to the true God who is in Heaven. When Jesus, a few moments before his death, had his side pierced by the lance of Longinus, he repented of having called himself God and King of the Jews and he asked pardon of the true God; then the true God pardoned him. It is thus that we apply to the crucified Christ these words: ‘as God pardoned the thief on the cross.’”

  She and Cam would need to pursue this further. Did the Templars really see ‘the crucified Christ’ as some kind of thief? If so, it could only mean they believed Jesus had stolen the … what, the claim to being the messiah? But stolen from whom? Was this the secret the Templars had used to blackmail the Church back in medieval times? Amanda shook her head: There had to be more to it than just this.

  She checked her watch. Almost five o’clock. The Thief on the Cross research would have to wait. If they were going to trudge their way through the mountains, she preferred to at least know what they might stumble upon. She focused on the Catskills and the clues left by January.

  An hour of Internet searching later she had some answers. She gently woke Cam. “Sweetheart, I think I found something.” She kissed him lightly. “We need to wake up and get started.”

  He rubbed his eyes, smiling up at her. “I like it when your face is the first thing I see in the morning.”

  The sleep seemed to have done him good. “And it’s a fine thing to see you smiling.”

  He threw the covers off. “Give me a minute to wash up and get a little food in me.”

  While he did so, Amanda tiptoed into Astarte’s bedroom. The girl was already out of bed, half dressed. “You people sleep late.”

  Amanda raised an eye. “It’s not yet six o’clock.”

  “I used to get up at five every morning to have breakfast with Uncle Jefferson.”

  “Well, then, you won’t mind if we get an early start. Finish dressing; I’ll fix you some breakfast.”

  “Where are we going?”

  “To find some answers.”

  They beat the Boston rush hour traffic out of the city, though Cam was surprised when Amanda directed him north out of the city rather than west. “I thought we were heading to New York?”

  “We are. But we’re not climbing any mountains in this weather, and I don’t think we should just sit around the Catskills waiting to be found—no doubt that’s where they’re looking for us. So first I thought we could make a quick detour.”

  “Okay, where?”

  “You said that January talked a lot about Phoenicians coming to America.”

  He sipped from a bottle of cranberry juice as Astarte chewed on a bagel in the back seat. “Right. Lots of his artifacts have Phoenician writing. And they were the best navigators in ancient times.”

  “Mr. Thorne is right,” Astarte said, nodding.

  Amanda smiled. “Thank you, Astarte.” She turned to Cam. “Where were these artifacts found?”

  “Mostly the Ohio River Valley.”

  “Well, the Phoenicians may have been in New England also. Perhaps even the Catskills.”

  He shrugged. “Okay. But that would have been, what, 1,500 years before the Templars and Prince Madoc and the Clairvaux Codex. So what’s the relevance?”

  Amanda stared out the window. “I guess that’s the key point here. January found these artifacts, and he views them all while looking through his Mormon glasses. In his eyes, they all authenticate the history set down in the Book of Mormon. But we need to see them objectively. The artifacts can be authentic—they can tell the story of ancient peoples coming to America—and yet not be Mormon.”

  Cam considered her argument for a few seconds. “Great point. Maybe January’s artifacts have nothing to do with the Mormons at all. But that doesn’t answer my question: What’s the connection between the Phoenicians and the Clairvaux Codex?”

  “Just this: The Templars, or Prince Madoc, or whoever it was, did not just stumble across the Atlantic blindly. They must have followed ancient maps, or used ancient navigational devices—remember, the compass was not used in Europe until the early 13th century.”

  Cam drummed the steering wheel with his fingers as the wipers thwacked back and forth. “You think the Templars discovered ancient maps or navigational charts while they were in Jerusalem?”

  “That is precisely what I think. And the Templars weren’t only in Jerusalem. They were all over the Middle East. I believe they uncovered details of
the ancient Phoenician travels to North America, and used that information to cross the pond.”

  He smiled. “And do you have any evidence for this theory?”

  “I do. But I’d rather show you than tell you. So please just keep driving.” She patted his knee. “And be careful, as everyone seems to be on the wrong side of the road.”

  Jabil Hayek turned the car radio off. “Sorry, Farah, I have to make a call.” If he waited he might miss his chance.

  His daughter yawned. “Kay.”

  He hated to do it—he only had custody of her two days a week, and the morning car ride to school was one of the few chances they had to talk. And even that was tough—there was little conversational common ground between a 17-year-old girl and a middle-aged man. Last week he had taken her to the Kennedy Center to see “Mamma Mia,” but they had talked that out. “You can listen if you want, or you can listen to that i-thing of yours.”

  She shrugged and stuck an earplug in her ear. Not a bad kid; a pretty good one, in fact. Solid grades, decent athlete, nice friends, no drugs or booze or weird piercings. But nothing outstanding, nothing that would get her that fat college scholarship. The knot in his stomach tightened—he had less than six months to figure out a way to come up with $50,000 for her freshman tuition, plus another $50,000 per year for three years after that. He wasn’t looking forward to this phone call, but at least it might distract him from obsessing over the college conundrum. He recognized the irony—he was doing his best to keep the Middle East from igniting like a powder keg, but his real fear was the prospect of explaining to Farah—and his ex-wife—that she would have to go to a state college.

  The digital clock flicked over to 7:00 AM. He pulled out a scrap of paper and dialed the number of the director of the Smithsonian Institution, officially known as the Secretary. He had wanted to make the call from his home office but he knew if he called any earlier the Vice President, a close friend of the director, would hear about it. Not the best career move.

  The director, a sixty-something professor of history from Princeton, was not pleased to be contacted at home. “I’m sorry.

  Your name was ‘Hike,’ as in something one might do on a mountain? Or perhaps to a football?”

  “No, Madam Secretary. Hayek. As in Salma, the actress. And I’m sorry to bother you so early. But this is a matter of national security.”

  The director exhaled into the phone. “It always is. I’m amazed the Republic hasn’t crumbled. What is it?”

  He took a deep breath, one hand on the wheel. He didn’t dare put her on speaker phone. “It’s about the Bat Creek Stone.”

  She snorted. “A Masonic hoax. What about it?”

  He craved a cigarette but knew Farah would disapprove. “Actually, that’s an open question. I’m concerned that the Smithsonian is allowing the stone to be tested by a geologist. And also allowing DNA testing of the bones found with it.”

  “Mr. Hike. How in heaven’s name is this a matter of national security?”

  He hit the brakes as an SUV rushed through a red light and cut him off, the 12-year-old chassis of his Honda creaking and moaning from the torque. He took another deep breath, resisting the urge to lay on his horn. How could he keep the peace if he couldn’t even make it in to work? “Madam Secretary. There is already strong scientific evidence establishing the Bat Creek Stone as an authentic ancient artifact. Technology has advanced to the point where the carvings in the stone can be dated based on the weathering of the cut faces. I also believe the DNA testing will show that the bones are of Middle Eastern origin.”

  “That is ridiculous. As I said, the stone was proven to be a fake. In fact, it was one of the Smithsonian’s own men who planted it in the burial mound.”

  How convenient was that. And how absurd. “I believe the Smithsonian’s man was made a scapegoat in this. There simply is no evidence he planted the stone. And why would he?”

  “People do strange things, Mr. Hike. And they believe in strange conspiracies.”

  And some other people cling to the history they learned in second grade like a life raft. “The fact is that the wooden beams uncovered with the skeletons buried in the mound carbon-date to the first century AD. And the inscribed stone was found under the head of one of the skeletons. I believe further testing will show the stone and bones are equally as old.”

  She exhaled. “Even if what you propose is true, so what? The carvings are Cherokee.”

  “No. They are not. They are Paleo-Hebrew, from the first century AD.”

  “You’re not proposing that some ancient Jewish voyagers stumbled their way across the Atlantic 2,000 years ago, are you? I suppose they were looking for good Chinese food? Or a sale at Macy’s?”

  Hayek bit back a retort. He loved his adopted country, but there were plenty of people, including more than a few governmental officials, who could benefit from some cultural immersion. How could the younger President Bush, with all his wealth and life of privilege, have never traveled outside North America before being elected President?

  “That’s exactly what I’m proposing. That and much more. And the ramifications extend far beyond the world of academia. Which is why I’m involved.” If the Jefferson January artifacts, and their implications, became public, Hayek’s people could strong-arm a bunch of academic types to pooh-pooh the whole thing as the work of amateur conspiracy theorists. But if hard science showed the reality of Middle Eastern explorers arriving here 2,000 years ago, a strategy of refuting January by painting him as a kook would be fruitless. Even the Catholic Church had been swept under by The Da Vinci Code tidal wave, powerless to squelch the theory of a Jesus bloodline once the idea of Mary Magdalene being his wife took root in popular culture. Hayek needed to stomp out the various brushfires before they joined together in a huge conflagration. “I need you to get that stone back from the geologist. And retrieve the bones as well.”

  She steeled her voice. “Mr. Hike. What you need and what I am prepared to do are two entirely different things. For the record, the bones are already on their way to the University of Tennessee and the stone is already there. As you know the bones and artifact belong to the Cherokee tribe. It is their legal right to test them, their time and money to waste. I believe they have retained Geraldo Rivera to announce their findings on national TV. Now good day.”

  Hayek rubbed his face. It would be anything but.

  They had been driving just over an hour when Cam pulled off the highway in southern New Hampshire. He recognized the exit—he and Amanda had visited the America’s Stonehenge site only days after they first met. And, in fact, they later had been held captive by Salazar and his cronies there. He was not sure why Amanda saw the need to return.

  She read his thoughts. “When I brought you here last year, we rushed through quickly. Do you recall that many believe ancient Phoenician explorers built the site?”

  “Actually, no. My head was spinning with all the Templar stuff. But I do remember the Sacrificial Stone.” The site consisted of a series of mysterious stone structures predating Colonial settlement. In the center of the complex, in what scholars believed to be the ceremonial area, stood the trapezoidal Sacrificial Stone. A priest, concealed in a nearby stone chamber, could have projected his voice through a stone conduit running under the slab, making it appear as if the gods were speaking through the bodies of the sacrificed offerings. It would be nice to come here someday when someone wasn’t trying to make him a human sacrifice.

  “Do you remember the astronomical alignments?” she asked.

  They had also intrigued him. A series of boulders and standing stones were aligned to mark calendar events such as solstice and equinox sunrises and sunsets. The site, like its namesake in England, served as both ceremonial site and calendar for an ancient culture. He smiled. “Ah, I see where you’re going with this. Whoever laid out those boulders knew a lot about astronomy. And we’re back to our Phoenicians.”

  “Precisely. They were experts in navigation, due to thei
r extensive knowledge of the solar system.”

  “But you didn’t bring me here to see the stone alignments. I’ve already seen those.”

  She smiled and turned in her seat. “You see, Astarte, Cameron is clever in addition to being handsome.”

  They pulled into a muddy parking lot. A pet alpaca—a llama–like animal—waddled over and pressed a wet nose against Astarte’s window. “Well,” Amanda laughed, “apparently someone is glad to have company today.”

  “Can I pet him?” Astarte asked, rolling down her window.

  “Perhaps offer him a piece of your bagel first.”

  Astarte did so, giggling as the animal nibbled against her fingers. Cam watched, wondering if the scene foreshadowed his future with Amanda. Assuming they had a future.

  Amanda had cut holes in some garbage bags which they slipped over their heads to serve as rain ponchos. They left the car, the alpaca trotting along behind Astarte.

  “Are they even open yet?” Cam asked.

  “Probably not. But there’s usually someone here early to feed the animals.”

  A few minutes later an accommodating staff member unlocked the door to the information center. “Make yourself at home.”

  Amanda led Cam to a display case. She pointed at a salmon-colored stone the size of baseball mitt. “The writing on this carving is Punic, an ancient Mediterranean language. It translates as, ‘To Baal of the Canaanites,’ and dates back to roughly 500 BC. Baal was the supreme god of the Phoenicians at that time.”

  BAAL STONE, AMERICA’S STONEHENGE